Be Better

by TheBedGuy

Adam is not the smartest, strongest or toughest of guys around. But his heart was as big as they come, tenacious, courageous and unyielding. So, when he discovered that New York was on the brink of destruction, he decided to do something about it. One step at a time. LeechPowerOC! can steal muscle mass, body part size, health etc. MCU/MULTI. Lemons, Moral Ambiguity, Gray OC, Harem.

3. Chapter 3

I have no excuse; I have been stuck in this chapter for so goddamn long that in the end it felt like I didn't know how to write.

I'll try to post faster in the future, but I'm man enough to not promise anything.

Also, this chapter had become too massive, and that was without me finishing the second half of it. In the end I decided to split it and post this finished part first because I had delayed this chapter enough.

This is the first part, and the second I still have to finish so I don't know exactly when I'll post. Though I do know it'll be far faster than this one, I assure you.

Inspired by Dragon_jak's Here Comes Power CYOA.

Chapter Warnings: Language, fucked up situations, Grammar Mistakes (?).

Arc 1: Humble Beginnings

Roughly 15k words

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- Adam Grayson -

Adam's heart was echoing the rapid drumbeat of the fear and adrenaline he felt. Cold sweat formed on his forehead as panic surged through his veins. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving him breathless and confused as what just happened fully set in on his mind.

Someone knew who he was.

There was a reason he wore a goddamn mask, and it wasn't just for protection or to hide his identity. It wasn't a "symbol" so people could recognize Hood. It wasn't just a costume.

No.

He wore the mask to protect Cass, to protect Kate and each one of his friends that could be harmed because of him and what he did. It was about their safety, always their safety.

Despite the many panic-inducing scenarios that threatened to plague his mind, Adam swallowed hard and pushed down the rising fear within him, bringing all of his enhanced focus to bear so he could concentrate fully on the now instead of the many what ifs.

The pain in his body was instantly forgotten, his thoughts running a mile a second as his enhanced mind – measly as it was at the moment – tried to work towards a solution to the problem.

His first instinct was to deny everything, but he knew that doing that would make him seem guilty in the first place.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! What should he do? He wasn't good at lying; he has never been good at lying. That was always Kate's job when they got caught doing shit that they shouldn't be supposed to do, he was only ever good at either acting confused or talking their way out of trouble if Kate's lie didn't work…

Wait, acting confused? He could do that.

With a hasty plan formed, the rapid thud of his heartbeat was still pounding on his ears, and despite doing his best to maintain composure, his voice still came out tense as he confusedly replied, "What? Who is this? I think you got the wrong number."

The altered voice on the other end remained unwavering as it replied with its artificially deep tone "There's no need to lie, Adam"

As if in sync with the conversation, his phone emitted a sudden ping, drawing his attention away from the call. "I already know who you are."

With a slightly shaky hand, he removed the phone from his ear and glanced at the screen.

It was a message notification from an unknown number.

Swallowing hard, he unlocked his phone to view the message, and his breath was caught on his throat as he saw it; it was a video taken from a security camera. It wouldn't be a worrying sight by itself, if not for the fact that the footage clearly showed him,dressed in his Hood costume and going out of the garage.

His garage.

And not only that, but as the video went forward, it continued to show him, but this time as Adam, in his normal every-day clothes hanging around the very same garage that the vigilante came out of.

There was no denying it, it was the same alley; it had the same graffiti, hell, even the goddamn trash was the same.

That… simply shouldn't be possible, he always made sure that it was safe before he went out at night, both with his enhanced senses and through the camera system, and besides, the Lucky Cat was the only place on the alley that had a ca-

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

These videos weren't taken from just any security camera… he recognized this angle and placement.

It was the Lucky Cat's back alley camera.

But how? The Lucky Cat had one of the best top-of-the line security systems out there, courtesy of Eleanor – Kate's mom – and Bishop Security, and anything that came from Bishop Security were notoriously known for being extremely safe and virtually impossible to hack or invade.

Besides, he was the only one that took care of the cafe's surveillance, and he always made sure that he completely erased anything that could even hint of a link between the vigilante and either him or this place, no matter how small or insignificant it seemed.

Whoever the fuck was behind this not only knew his identity but somehow had access to his home.

Where Aunt Cass and Kate were.

Where his family were.

His thoughts were interrupted by the voice, "Do you still doubt me? I have more proof if you want."

The words and the implications behind them made something within him burn, rational thoughts slowly beginning to exit his mind as his hands clenched tightly into fists, fingers trembling with a mixture of rage and anxiety as dark thoughts permeated his mind.

He couldn't think that this entire circus was anything else other than the Maggia's attempts to intimidate and threaten him. To show him that they knew where and who he was, that they knew who his friends and family were.

And it really pissed him off.

If it was any other time, in any other circumstance, Adam could probably hold himself back, to maintain his rationality and not give anything up as he thought of ways to go about the situation.

But now? Adam's response was instant, whatever sliver of control leaving his mind altogether at the imminent danger that two of the most important people in his life were at.

"Who the fuck is this? How do you know who I am?" he demanded, his previously calm voice lowering into an anger-filled growl.

"There we go,"The heavy voice on the other end remained cryptic, unaffected by Adam's outburst. "Now that we've got that out of the way, we can get to business,"

Adam only growled in response, teeth grinding in annoyance as he paced on the garage, "Answer. My. Question."

A huff of amusement reached his ears before it continued, "Honestly what was on your mind? Did you really think that you could just… walk away and act as if nothing happened after what you did?"

Adam didn't deign the voice with a response just yet, being content with gathering as much information as he could without interrupting.

The silence went on for a few seconds before the voice spoke up once again, its tone ominous "You have no idea just who you pissed off, Hood. The Maggia isn't happy with you, you don't want that."

Adam's anger grew into a roaring inferno, the unknown voice's words sparking something from within him.

He should be afraid, for himself and for his loved ones. On some level, he was, truly, but the coiling anger was slowly burning away the edges of his fear and making him focus these feelings entirely on the Maggia, and on the threat that they now posed for his family.

But most of all, he was furious at himself for putting them all at risk like this in the first place.

Adam broke his silence with a growl, his words carrying his frustration on its tone. "So what? You think I'm afraid of you? Of the Maggia?"

Adam's chest heaved, anger still simmering beneath the surface and his knuckles white from the force of his grip on the phone.

Giving no time for the voice to respond, he continued, voice growing louder "You think that I'll shake and wimp like a coward just because you know who I am?!"

Veins were popping up on his arms and neck, voice growing louder, "You thought you'd hear me whine? Hear me beg? Well, that ain't happening! You know why? Because I'm not afraid of fighting a fucking war by myself!"

His breath was a little ragged, his wounds slowly making themselves known once again as he painfully caught his breath, left hand clutching his bandaged ribs as he held back a pained groan.

I'll have to get rid of these fucking wounds.

No sound broke through the other end of the line. His only answer was silence.

Until, after some very tense seconds, a response finally came.

"That's good to know, but you misunderstand me Adam," The Voice was still steady, its calm tone contrasting his tumultuous one. "I'm not working with the Maggia."

What?

"What?" Adam's incredulity was palpable, "What the fuck are you talking about?" he sputtered, frustration and disbelief clear in his voice. "You call my number, say you know who I am, send me videos of my home, and you expect me to believe this shit?"

But the voice persisted, its tone still calm. "I'm not here to threaten you." it reassured, "I'm here to offer you help."

What?

What was happening?

Adam was expecting this to go down in about a million different ways; threats, drive-by, maybe even a home invasion or two… But this? This was the last thing he had in mind.

His mind raced and whirled with different thoughts, suspicion and caution swirling on his head. Was this a trap? If it was, what kind of trap was it? How would helping him help them if they already knew where he lived?

Forcing himself to regain as much of his composure as he could, "I don't know where you're playing at," Adam's vice grip on his phone went back to normal, his voice strained as he said, "But you have to explain a bit more if you want me to believe you"

The voice answered, a hint of coyness in its tone "You see, that little show you put on a few days ago? It caught their attention, and they're really unhappy about it"

Adam couldn't help but scoff, a hint of humor in his words despite the situation "I could gather that by myself, believe it or not."

"I do believe you,"the voice replied, and Adam could almost sense a smile in the words. "But I don't think you understand just what exactly that means. People fear them for a reason, they have money, they have power and they have most of the cops in the city in their back pocket. Every vile thing you can think of, they probably have their fingers on it. The Maggia is arguably the strongest force in New York."

Adam idly thought back to that night, to what these men were about to do to that family, and the smattering of disfigured limbs and broken bodies he left as their "reward".

He didn't forget his own reward either, as he idly massaged his bruised and bandaged ribs.

It seemed so long ago now.

"...And you've managed to piss them off, I'm impressed." the voice returned, a mixture of respect and humor in its tone."You've put them in the spotlight, you fought them and you actually won, made them seem weak, made them bleed."

Adam scoffed as he paced through the garage, Made them seem weak? I almost died trying to stop only a few of their guys, there's nothing weak about them.

"You can bet they're not gonna let that pass. You may have been nothing more than an annoyance that they were willing to ignore, but they will find you eventually." the voice continued, pausing for some time to let the words settle, "Now, you could continue doing what you're doing and keep going out each night to hit them. It's good work, but in the end, it won't do much against them"

Adam went on to speak, but before he could form the words, he was interrupted, "But If you want to stop them, really stop them, you have to hit them where it hurts. I can help you with that."

Adam paused for a moment, thinking the words over and over in his head, enhanced focus working overtime as he analyzed the situation.

He didn't trust or believe this… voice for one second. Even if – and that's a big if – this wasn't some sort of trap from the Maggia themselves, this could very well be someone from some rival gang that wanted to use him against them. Maybe use him to make them weak enough so they could sweep in and take over their place.

Or maybe there was an even bigger picture at play that he couldn't fully grasp.

But… What could he do? If he didn't go along for now, he'd have to live constantly looking over his shoulder in fear of something happening, with the constant fear of Cass and Kate being attacked or worse.

If he refused, he'd never find out who this person is, how they found out who he was, or if there are other people that know his secret.

But, if he went along with this, even if it was a trap, he could at the very least learn enough to get out of this situation. It could be a source of information, something to build a plan on.

It was some moments later that he exhaled deeply as he conceded. "Alright, let's say I believe you, let's say you're not with them. How can I trust you?"

The artificial voice emitted a barely perceptible huff of amusement. "I wouldn't trust me if I were you," it admitted, a hint of humor lingering before they grew serious once more, "But here is a reason to listen: The Maggia's preparing for something big. Big enough that if they go through with it a lot of people will be in danger."

His skepticism gave way to curiosity and wariness. With what little he knew of the Maggia, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine that the words were true.

Exaggerated? Probably. But not a complete lie.

So, he decided to give the voice the benefit of the doubt for now, "Explain," he grunted, his deep voice tinged with caution and curiosity.

"It would be easier to just show you, go to your computer." the Voice answered.

A confused expression surged on Adam's face, and he hesitated for a brief moment, pausing to consider his options before letting out a sigh as he made up his mind. He was fully committed now.

With the adrenaline high from the scare finally over, the pain from his injuries returned to him with a vengeance, his various aches and wounds burning like fire through his body.

At least now the pain wasn't completely debilitating like it was last week, rather, it was more of an annoyance than anything else. He was healing remarkably quickly.

He quickly hid away the stolen weapons before moving on to lift the garage door with a pained grunt, he was greeted by the surprising sounds of rain pelting down from the night sky. The pitter-patter of the raindrops muddying the lamp-lit grimy alleyways even more, splashing dirty trash water all around.

With his phone still pressed to his ear, he slowly and cautiously stuck his head out of the door. Adam carefully scanned his surroundings, looking left and right as he searched for signs of any suspicious figures that might match the voice he was conversing with.

The Voice suddenly spoke, breaking the silence and startling him out of his search, "I'm not there Adam." The Voice's words carried a slight bit of humor.

"How the-" He turned his body left and right in a hasty, confused search for anything that could be used to spy on him before he remembered the alley camera.

He still didn't know how the voice managed to bypass the security and access the camera remotely like this. As he said, it was supposed to be one of the most secure systems out there.

After all, Bishop Security was leagues more advanced and effective than most other companies on the market – save perhaps Stark Industries, but they mostly dealt with weapons manufacturing – especially when it comes to security, so much so that practically all of New York's infrastructure and security was actually managed by them; The city's electric grid, CCTV, phones, cellular communications, crime prediction system, facial recognition, hospitals, ATMs, bank accounts, and a lot more that he had no idea about.

It was all controlled by a highly advanced digital information system specifically designed to manage the infrastructure of a metropolitan region. "Central Operating System" they called it.

ctOS, for short.

It was a huge thing a few years back, all sorts of ethical and philosophical questions being raised, security concerns, protests, the whole shebang. But by now people were so completely used to it that it became a part of everyday life, even other cities began using it.

It made it a pain in the ass for his Hood persona though, he had to tread through eggshells to make sure that the ctOS cameras and other surveillance systems couldn't track him back to the Lucky Cat. It was difficult, and sometimes made trying to save people a lot harder than it should, but he knew Queens like the back of his hand, and while he couldn't avoid all surveillance, he thought he did a fine job of it.

He could say that he was "lucky" that the Lucky Cat was the only store/house that had a camera pointed to the alley, otherwise people would've found out who he was a long time ago.

Evidently, he didn't do a good enough job of it, seeing as he was in this situation and all.

Turning back to the conversation, he slowly turned to look at the camera in question, he blurted out "You know what? That's really creepy."

The Voice's response was simple and direct "Yes."

Not satisfied by the lackluster response, he continued, "You have a lot to explain."

Once again, their response was extremely succinct, but still amused, "Yes."

Adam grunted in annoyed acknowledgment before quickly closing the garage door and moving further into the rain, dampening his clothes more and more. Retrieving his keys from his back pocket, he closed the garage door right after shutting off the dim light inside.

Moving briskly to escape the rain's grasp, he made his way to the stairs located on the right side of the garage. He fumbled to unlock the door for a bit while he cradled the phone in his ear before rushing through the stairs and the rooftop garden until he reached his door.

Finally entering his room, he saw that it was still empty, which meant that Kate still hadn't arrived from whatever chat her mother had called her to.

He didn't know what it was about, but Eleanor sounded happy on the phone so he hoped it was something good. Kate deserved good news; she was a bit down lately.

The lack of her presence saddened him a bit, Adam loved having her around even if it made it more difficult for him to sneak out at night, and he also wanted her to have met Maddie today too. He knew the two of them enough to know that they wouldn't get along well, but it sure would've been entertaining.

Well, maybe next time.

After locking the door to his room for precaution, Adam bolted straight for his computer, stating "Alright, I'm on my PC now."

"Hmm," acknowledged the voice.

His computer turned on by itself, a black screen the only thing greeting him before a strange-looking digital skull appeared, black windows materializing by themselves around it, doing unknown things to the machine as they opened and closed by the dozens.

He muttered under his breath, "Damn, that's really freaky."

After a few moments, the black windows stopped popping up, the skull disappearing and leaving his screen entirely black before the voice began to talk.

"A few weeks back, one of their servers malfunctioned, I managed to bypass their security before they cut the connection. Sadly, most of the data was either corrupted beyond repair or using a cryptography that I've never seen before," A few images, videos, documents, and numerous other files began to appear on the previously black screen during the explanation, "But I found something: there's a large number of heavy cargo shipments that are scheduled to arrive some time in national waters. Drugs, weapons, everything in between."

While Adam could understand why this was bad, he also knew that this couldn't be the whole picture, the voice wouldn't have tracked him down if it was just this, "What's so special about this? Even I know that many gangs like the Maggia have trade all across the globe."

The voice let out an acknowledging hum, "You're right, while not something unusual by itself, there was something different about this…" There was a slight pause before one of the folders came to the forefront of his screen, an image suddenly opening for him to see.

It was a massive cargo ship, several feet in length and painted in a forest green hue that was long corroded by time and saltwater, the big, white lettered "ASC" on its side telling its name.

The honestly terrifying pitch-black night sea was almost swallowing the massive ship whole, with the few yellow-hued spotlights around its deck and cargo hold making the ship visible, although barely able to fight against the sea fog that surrounded the ship.

From the angle of the picture, it was safe to assume that it was taken from a drone, although why it was taken was another mystery.

Despite the precarious lighting of the image, the surprising quality of the picture allowed Adam to still see at least dozens – perhaps even hundreds – of containers being carried by the ship, being tightly secured in place against the waves by several hundred twist locks, turnbuckles and lashing rods.

Adam didn't know if all of them were from the Maggia or not, but he knew that even if only a handful of those belonged to them it would already be too much.

It was hard for him to imagine how much shit only one of those containers could carry, let alone that many of them. If one were to imagine that all of those were stuffed with drugs, weapons and god knows what else and was heading straight here… it was a scary thought indeed.

The voice continued,bringing Adam out of his inner thoughts with its artificially altered tone "... it was the sheer scale of it."

Adam licked his lips, taking a moment to fully wrap his head around the situation before he asked "And these containers, are all of them filled with drugs and weapons? Or is there anything else?"

The voice carried an undertone of annoyance on its words as he explained "I didn't manage to get everything, but from what I could put together it's a mix of weapons, electronics, hardware, several chemical compounds and drugs, lots of drugs." There was a frustrated sigh on the other end of the line before he continued "The scary kind too; crack, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, meth…"

The full picture was slowly starting to put itself together in Adam's mind, he wasn't much of a detective, but when he linked all of the little pieces of information on the board, it was starting to dawn on him just the sheer size, scale and reach that the Maggia seemed to have.

But while this answered some questions, all it did was raise even more. "How much is there?"

"Tons, enough material to cost between seven hundred to nine hundred million, maybe more."

"Jesus Christ…" Adam's eyes widened in shock, "That's entire morgues full of ODs and murders in the making…" His phone nearly slipped from his grasp as his mind raced with the implications. "What about the police? Coast guard? DEA? This is not some small-scale shit, this is big, how don't they know?"

The voice's answer was slightly tinged with confusion in its deep tone, "That's the thing. Something of this scale usually gets picked up by DEA or Interpol before they even have the chance to evolve, but… I couldn't find anything about this."

Adam let out a frustrated breath, what went unsaid was just as worrying as what was said.

He rose out of his chair with a bit of effort, struggling a bit thanks to his wounds before he managed to stand and began pacing through his room as he put his thoughts to words, "What, you think they're in on it?"

"Maybe. It's hard to tell, most of what I got from the server was too corrupted, so it could be a possibility." Confusion and annoyance emanated from the voice's tone as they spoke, "But If they are, then this is even bigger than it already is,"

Adam continued his pacing before he pressed further, "And where is this shipment now?"

The voice lingered in tense silence for a few seconds before finally responding, "I don't know."

Adam halted abruptly, a disbelieving, humorous scoff escaping his lips as he asked, "You don't know? There's a billion-dollar ship full of drugs and weapons on the way to New York, and you don't know where it is?"

"I told you, most of the information I got from their server was corrupted. It was a miracle that I managed to scrounge this up as it is." Frustration seeped through the voice's words, as if this was a topic that they had spent hours on.

Adam cursed under his breath, fists clenching in frustration and confusion. Everything about this felt wrong; someone knew who he was, there were billions of dollars' worth of drugs seemingly lost and going somewhere in his city, the authorities doing nothing about it…

With a deliberate effort, Adam drew in a deep breath, centering himself and his thoughts. Instead of overthinking things, he tried to use his enhanced mind and focus to think over the situation.

He didn't fully trust whoever this person was, nor did he trust their account of the whole situation. He wouldn't just blindly trust someone that not only knew who he was and where he lived, but also knew about his family.

But… What if it was true? Even if only a part of it?

For fucks sake, only a few hours ago he was just worried about the Maggia hurting innocents as retaliation for what he did. Small-scale stuff that would obviously be difficult for him to deal with, but still doable.

But now? Jesus, if the drugs alone managed to get in the streets, there would be an opioid crisis at the very minimum, that's not to say about the weapons.

Having an opioid crisis is no fucking joke. The few videos he'd seen of the places plagued by them were enough to drive home how much of a nightmare fuel it is.

If he trusted this mysterious voice, then his entire situation had done a complete 180. All of this hinted at a far, far larger organization than what he had in mind…

And what about the police, Interpol or whatever other possible authority that should be in charge of things like this? What if they were in on it? What could he do against them?

He was one guy, a guy that dressed like a clown to beat up some muggers and other thugs, and now this? Wasn't his plan to make the Maggia not focus on him? The moment he messes up with this there will be an even bigger target on his back then it was before…

How was he supposed to deal with all of this?

Adam fell back into his chair with a deep sigh, already knowing the answer.

He tried to release the tension built up in his body, the weight of the situation settling heavily on his shoulders before he asked"Okay… what's the plan?"

The voice exhaled softly, Adam surmised it was in relief, "First, we'll have to find outwhere the shipment is right now, and where the ship will dock."

An amused huff escaped his lips, "I'd consider this important, yes."

He heard a snort from the other side of the line, "An operation of this size is a huge gamble for them, there's a lot of money, a lot of effort and a lot of power being spent, so If that shipment is destroyed or seized it will no doubt cripple their power and influence."

"Not to mention cost them a shit ton of money"

"Lucky for us we have a lead, there was a ledger attached to the file. It points to one of their warehouses in the Hell's Kitchen docks, they use it as a front for a shipping business, it's not that big but it's somewhat relevant. I don't know what its role in the operation is, but it's our best bet."

Then, an increasingly annoyed tone laced their voice as they continued, "I tried to hack it but their server is completely off grid, I've never seen protection of this scale for a business that small."

Adam hummed in response, "Looks like they're trying to hide something,"

"Exactly, but I'd have to have a physical connection to be able to know more."

"And that's where I come in"

"Yes, if you can get in there and connect me to their computers, I'll be able to remotely access their system and find where this shipment is."

Adam nodded in understanding, "Sounds like a plan," as far as he could gather it was a solid plan, what better way of finding out where their hidden ship was if not straight from the source.

Except for the fact that it could be a trap of course.

But he still had a few things to ask, to get a measure of the person he would 'partner' with, "But what makes you think I'll help? That I'd be willing to risk myself like this?"

While he already made his decision, he wanted to hear what they would say.

"For the same reason that you began to fight in the first place, for the same reason you go out there every night. Because you want to, and because you can."

Outside of a "Humm" Adam remained in silence, digesting the words with a pensive expression. While not completely right, he would admit that they were not too far from the truth.

But he still had another question, "Not that I don't appreciate it, but why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?"

There was silence from the other end of the line, long enough to make Adam think that he wouldn't be getting an answer until, after some time, they finally spoke, "I'm not just helping you, I'm helping everyone in this city too, including myself, I hold no love for the Maggia and you're the only one that's actually going against them. It's not like I can go to the police with this since they're with them."

They offered nothing more, but Adam knew people, and his mind worked to read what went unsaid between the lines. This is a difficult subject for them. They had to think hard on the answer, didn't want to give the full truth. Maybe one of their victims? Or a family member?

If I press for more right now it will most likely alienate any future answers related to the topic. The best way for me to know more about them is to drop the subject for now, build up a more stable relationship between the two of us and ask again later to avoid misleading answers or half-truths.

Adam sighed,"Alright then..." When he tried to reach his memory for the person's name, a sudden realization struck him, "Wait, what's your name again?"

There was a brief pause before the answer came, "BadBoy17."

What?

All the tension that was building up inside of him instantly broke when he heard the absurd name, and despite the situation, Adam found himself laughing. "BadBoy17?" he repeated between bouts of laughter. "Oh man, I can't believe I was afraid of a guy called BadBoy."

The moment BadBoy only let out a coy 'hum' in answer, he knew that he had made a mistake, "I don't know, 'Conqueeftador', I'd say it's a good name."

His laughter suddenly stopped.

Oh god, not his gamer tag.

He should've known better than to try and make fun of a hacker.

Despite the much better atmosphere as opposed to before, Adam couldn't help but pray to whatever gods that were listening that he didn't make a mistake in trusting this "BadBoy17".

At least now he wouldn't have to go in blind against the Maggia. He had a tentative ally and he had the beginnings of a plan of action against them, as barebones as it was.

- BB -

Turns out BadBoy found him by using the ctOS to triangulate the general area that Hood "operated" on, tracking him down through the cameras until he found out the neighborhood where he constantly appeared and disappeared from.

From then on it was simple trial and error until he found him at the Lucky Cat.

BadBoy assured him that it was harder to do it than it sounded, and he only managed to track him because he was a really good hacker. There was also the fact that finding people when they didn't want to be found was his specialty.

He was more than a bit lucky that his newest ally was – apparently – on his side, and that he was the first one to find him before the Maggia or any other crazies out there had the same brilliant idea.

According to the… Man? Woman? Disembodied voice? He did a good enough job at bypassing surveillance, but there was only so much he could do in a place that was completely taken over by ctOS like Queens was, at least not without help.

And that brought on another question altogether. How exactly did BadBoy have access to the ctOS in the first place?

Finding out that he was part of DedSec was a bit shocking.

Being intimate with the daughter of Bishop Security's CEO afforded him a better in-depth knowledge on how things worked behind the scenes than most, and DedSec has been a thorn in Eleanor and Bishop Security's side for as long as the ctOS launched.

He lost count of how many times Eleanor had to interrupt or cancel something with him and Kate because she had to do damage control from something they did.

They are entirely opposed to the implementation and use of the ctOS, and had the sole objective of proving that the system was flawed and unnecessary by hacking into various ctOS systems for destructive purposes in order to highlight its weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They were one the very few groups who were capable of hacking it.

Personally, he knew how useful and how dangerous the ctOS could be, but it wasn't like this was something that he had ever truly thought too in depth about.

But he could focus on that later, he already had one hot potato in his hands, he most definitely didn't need two of them.

Adam and BadBoy hadn't been idle meanwhile, the two of them spending days going over their little operation, studying the warehouse, the place, what it did, the neighborhood… basically everything to make sure that things went smoothly.

If everything went according to plan, he wouldn't even need to fight in the first place, but, as a wise philosopher once said, "Everyone has a plan until they're punched in the mouth" so having a fallback wouldn't cost him anything.

Not that he was having much success with it. He wasn't much of a planner, and he definitely didn't have the head for it, preferring to go with improvisation and instincts more than anything else.

Funnily enough Kate was the same way, and while being like this never let him down before, it definitely got the two of them in some ill-thought-out sticky situations.

Either way, this whole operation would just be silly conjecture if he were to remain injured like he was. He may have healed quickly, but he wasn't "capable of infiltrating an enemy base" healed quite yet.

Luckily for him, he had powers.

It took less than a week since BadBoy first called to get himself back up to full health.

It was a little tricky (and embarrassing) trying to ambush some muggers with his injuries making things awkward, but with a healthy and indiscriminate application of his recently acquired and oh-so convenient electric baton, he managed to heal himself back up again.

And get a few substantial upgrades to his focus and determination along the way too – thanks to being able to absorb two things now – he certainly knew he'd need it in the coming days.

Honestly, the hardest part was making sure Kate or Cass didn't find out.

Is it good or bad that I'm getting better at lying to them?

Would Kate forgive him if she found out that he used a baby monitor to see if she was still sleeping while he was out? Probably not, but it was still funny.

She should really get her nose checked, those snores were not natural, man.

He didn't do this before because he didn't want to be caught sneaking out, and because he really was hurt to the point where fighting would be suicide, but with the looming threat hanging over his head, he decided to risk it anyway.

And that brought him to today.

Cass and Kate didn't quite believe him when he said he was fine (rightfully so), insisting on going to the hospital to make some checkups. After doing a battery of exams, it was needless to say that everyone, doctors included, were completely taken by surprise to see that he really was completely fine.

It was almost the end of November, and a soft blanket of freshly fallen winter snow hugged the streets at night, painting the muted earthy tones of browns of New York in a pleasant mix of whites and grays. The few Christmas decorations twinkling in the windows and already lining the streets hinted at the fact that, while still a fair bit away, the holidays were practically around the corner.

While the scene might seem bland or commonplace by most, for Adam it was all enchanting how the little things seemed to dance and fit so beautifully together to create a feeling and atmosphere that reminded him so much of Christmas.

Almost December, did time really pass so quickly?

Because of the cold climate, Adam had to forego his usual t-shirts for warmer clothes, donning a simple grey hoodie, light blue jeans and not much else. The cold had never affected him much before, and nowadays was no different.

All in all, the three of them practically spent all day at the Metro General Hospital all the way in New York for his checkup, already being night as they made their way to the parking lot, the soft crunch of snow beneath their boots the only sound interrupting the silence before a voice brought him out of his thoughts.

"You know, expecting you to behave like a normal person was a rookie mistake I'll admit, that one's on me," Kate's amused voice reached his ear, disbelief clear in her tone "But you have to admit, this is something else, even for you."

Shaking his thoughts away, Adam turned to look at Kate, who was garbed in heavy winter clothes, the frigid climate even forcing her to pull her trench coat out of its shame-filled exile because of the sheer cold.

As if that wasn't enough, she even wore his old puffer coat on top of it. It became too short for him since gaining his enhanced height – a common theme with his clothes now – so she decided that since he wasn't going to use it, she might as well steal it.

It was clearly oversized on her, but she didn't seem to care, walking with all the swagger of the overconfident little gremlin that she was.

Oh yeah, not to forget her usual doc martens of course.

A wry smile danced on Adam's lips as he answered her, "Pshh," he waved her words away, "You thought that 23 stab wounds, internal bleeding, a fracture in my left arm, a dislocated shoulder, four broken ribs and a broken clavicle would keep me down?"

Kate's eyebrows quirked as she snorted, her breath visible in the cold air, "I thought it wouldn't get you up, but I was wrong about that one too" she muttered under her breath before turning to look at him again, "I just thought it would, you know, take longer than two weeks for you to get better."

"Me too!" He lied with a laugh, quickly changing topics by animatedly saying, "I guess that's why they took my blood away to use for science."

Her nose crinkled cutely as she looked up at him "Pretty sure that was a blood test."

There were many reasons for him to be conscious of giving his blood away, not the least was the possible link they could make with Hood (he left buckets of it in his last fight after all), but the familiar feeling in his solar plexus – that he long since learned was related to his powers – practically waved his concerns away, almost offended about the notion in a way.

This instinct hadn't led him wrong until now so he decided to just go with it, even when there was a little hiccup sometime after they took his blood. Apparently, it was giving off some sort of weird information that messed up their machines, and he ended up having to take the test two more times until they were satisfied, but everything went well in the end.

It left him a little dizzy, but at least they gave him some juice though.

Another voice surged from his other side, this one more mature than the two teens as his aunt jokingly said, "The blood test was the first one; they actually did take his blood away for study."

Adam turned his head and looked down at Cass, who also opted to change her usual attire for a warmer one, donning a long-sleeved black V-neck shirt and a dark green jacket, a thick scarf going over it all.

Despite the joking tone in Cass's voice, he knew that she was still worried about him by the way she pulled her jacket tighter to herself despite no particularly cold wind passing them as they strolled together.

Gently taking one of her hands in his, he squeezed softly, I'm still here.

She responded with a soft smile, gratitude and lingering concern in her eyes.

Kate's voice drew his attention back to her, "Oh wow," she exclaimed beside them, a note of surprise evident in her tone, "That's… kinda cool, I have to admit"

Cass let out a quiet chuckle, acknowledging the sentiment as they continued to walk hand in hand. "It didn't feel like it," she squeezed his hand again, "Being told there was something wrong with my nephew's blood is not something I want to experience again."

He chimed in with a hearty laugh that produced visible puffs of breath in the cold air. "Oh, come on, it takes a lot more to faze the ol' Grayson. I'm made out of sterner stuff than that."

Kate added with a knowing smile, "Is that why the 'ol' Grayson' couldn't stop squirming during his blood test?"

His smile theatrically fell before he adopted a serious voice in mock offense, "I don't like needles; they make me nervous. You know that's a sensitive subject for me, and it's cruel of you to keep bringing that up."

Kate let out a laugh at his ridiculous expression, "You're right, I'm sorry." there was a mischievous glint in her eye as she continued, "But nervous, is not exactly the word I'd use." She arched her eyebrows suggestively with a knowing smile, "Especially after that cute nurse came."

"Ah, Nurse Palmer." Adam nodded shamelessly in recognition of the accusation, "You know I'm a nervous flirter, besides can you blame me? I mean, you girls are beautiful, but her smile was simply out of this world. Since I had to be penetrated by something, at least it was by her hands."

Kate let out a musical laugh, the corners of her eyes crinkling in that way that told him her laugh was a sudden and genuine one. Her arms encircled his own as she closed the gap between them between bouts of giggles.

Adam observed her with a soft, fond smile on his face.

She has a pretty smile.

He was glad he could lighten their mood, today has been a stressful day for her and Cass.

"Oh, I saw it, but I didn't think you did," She said between her bouts of giggles, her voice carrying a teasing note as she said, "I mean, you didn't stop looking at her-"

Adam interrupted her mid-phrase, a rakish glint in his eyes as he animatedly said, "Oh man, that as-"

Cass interrupted before he could finish his phrase, letting go of his hand to throw a playful swat to Adam's shoulder, "We got the picture sweetie." her laugh carrying through the frosty air as she continued, "You're lucky Nurse Palmer didn't mind it."

Kate let out a giggle, the warmth of her arms still wrapped around his, "That's because he had his little juice box with him. No woman takes flirting seriously from a guy sipping on a juice box."

He threw a shameless smirk, "Speak for yourself. I made her laugh, that's already fifty percent done right there,"

"Pretty sure she was laughing for the wrong reasons." She added

Adam lifted his free hand in a shrug "Hey, as long as it works,"

Kate scrunched her face as she remembered a detail, "Don't think her boyfriend liked you though," at his confused expression, she elaborated, using a hand to gesture at her chin, "You know, the one with that weird goatee?"

He gained a look of recognition on his face, "Oh yeah, that guy was Strange," he nodded thoughtfully before casually dismissing the memory. "Meh, who knows, maybe a few years from now she'll be free."

Cass patted his arm with a smile, "Let's hope you don't have to come here for the same reasons then."

He hated the fact that he couldn't promise her he would stay safe. In the end Adam just gave her a smile and a peck on her cheek as his answer.

The three of them finally reached the parking lot, where Aunt Cass's vintage baby blue 1948 Ford F-1 was already in view, a soft coat of snow blanketing the car. Despite its old age, and the constant use and abuse of errands for materials for the Lucky Cat, the car was in relatively good shape.

There were a few bumps, scrapes and rusty spots here and there, but the ol' reliable ancient car had heart and spirit, and he knew Aunt Cass would be sad to part with it when its time inevitably came.

He would be sad too, Adam always felt that the car had a personality of its own. He remembers calling it "Kaiju" when he was a kid because the car was so much bigger than him, the memory bringing a smile to his face.

As they approached the car, Kate released Adam's arm to open the door, revealing the cozy decorated interior of the well-worn pickup.

Before they entered the car, Adam turned to Kate with a sly look on his face, "So, what was that you told me earlier about your mom's boyfriend?"

Kate just let out a disgusted, "Ugh" in response, quickly getting inside the car before they could.

Adam just chuckled, absently noting that she sounded remarkably like Maddie right then.

See, the two of them have something in common already.

Seating himself inside the vintage truck, Adam shared a smile with Cass. Apparently, that day her mom had called her to tell that she went on a date with this guy… Jack DuQuesne or something posh like that? He didn't even know him, but even his name sounded rich.

The guy could be sheik-rich for all Adam cared, as long as he made Eleanor happy, he would be happy.

Laughing good-naturedly, Adam gently took Kate's hand, playfully kissing it before proposing, "Come on, pizza's on me, think of it as an apology for taking your entire day."

The three of them made their way out of the hospital towards home, Kate sitting right in the middle of the three seated pickup, as she always does - her favorite seat, Adam knew. It was a little cramped, but they made do as they always did.

The rest of the way home was spent simply talking and laughing, and before too long, the three of them had arrived at the Lucky Cat thanks to the surprising lack of heavy traffic.

Since it was a fair bit late into the night and all of them were quite tired, Cass decided not to open the Lucky Cat that night – which he knew she didn't like. She loved work and she loved her clients like family, and he knew that she tended to think they'd forget her if she didn't work for even a day.

Adam obviously had long since dissuaded her about it, after all, who in the world could forget Cass? She was perfect.

But from time to time she still worried about it, which tended to make her return to her old habit of stress eating.

She did enough of it when he was hurt, and she complained that it went all to her hips.

He made a mental note to make it up to her, maybe a foot rub? Or maybe he could bring out the elf costume for the cafe's Christmas event? No, he'd already be Santa…

Well, he'd think of something.

Instead, Adam and Kate spent some time together catching up with everything he missed during the days he didn't go to school while Cass tried on some new recipes for the upcoming Christmas season before dinner.

But while he spent time with Kate, he couldn't help but let his mind wander to the upcoming events…

These last few days he and BadBoy had been fine-tuning and putting on the final details of their plan to sneak inside the Maggia's warehouse.

It would be tricky, with him being the muscle that would sneak inside and get BadBoy the physical access to their servers, while he would be the one that would invade their system and get all the information he could, all the while assisting Adam through the cameras.

It was simple, but that didn't mean it would be easy. Communication between him and BadBoy would be their key to a successful operation.

That's why not too long after Adam and Kate ended their conversation, he told her that he would be spending some time working out in the garage for a while, to make up for lost time, he said. Lucky for him, besides some amused laughs and a reminder that the doctors still told him to take it easy, she and Cass didn't protest much.

It was only when he came to the garage's door at the back alley that he managed to find the real reason why he was there.

There was an inconspicuous black box sitting behind one of the trash containers – as he knew there would be. The box was roughly the size of a shoe box, made from something that looked like either cardboard or MDF, with a light coat of snow on the parts that weren't protected by the trash container.

This was a little gift that BadBoy left for him, something to help the two of them communicate better instead of him having to use his phone all the time like he was doing until now, especially when he sneaked into the warehouse.

Adam was a little creeped out that he didn't even see or hear anyone come through here. Yes, he did spend all day at the hospital, but still, not even the alley camera had any recording of anyone passing by.

He checked.

BadBoy could've probably used the mail, but Adam would bet his left nut that he did it like this just to fuck with him. He's probably laughing now, cheeky fucker.

Turning to look at the camera, he gave it a miffed look since he knew that BadBoy would see this somehow – even when he erased the recording later – before grabbing the box.

Cleaning the snow off the top, he gave it a scrutinizing look for a while before shrugging and entering the garage. If BadBoy wanted to do something with him, he probably would've done it through something other than this.

Closing the garage door behind him, Adam delicately placed the box on the workbench after clearing it of some tools. Opening it with bated breath, he finally saw the contents that he and BadBoy had been talking about inside.

There were a fair number of gear and equipment inside, but the first thing that drew his attention was probably the second most important piece for him.

It was a black-colored tactical throat mic and coiled earpiece that was connected to a small radio, the small and slim size of the earpiece would allow him to use it comfortably inside his mask, and the throat mic would fit comfortably on his neck while the radio could be clipped to his belt or jacket.

This would be what he would use to communicate with BadBoy, the high quality of the throat mic making it easily capable of capturing his voice directly by the vibrations from his throat, which meant that he wouldn't have to speak loudly for BadBoy to listen.

Which would be important for, you know, a stealth mission and all.

He didn't know how BadBoy changed the mic's radio to accept calls from a phone, but it made it even more useful since he wouldn't have to bring his phone with him.

Putting the mic aside, the next thing he saw was the actual most important piece in the box. It looked like a simple memory stick, but he didn't know if it was indeed just a simple memory stick, and he'd certainly not try it on his computer.

What this did was essentially allow BadBoy the physical access to the Maggia server the moment Adam plugged it in a USB port. Though, he fixated the fact that it would only work if it was connected to an important computer or the server itself. He didn't know why, just that it had to be for it to work.

The next item was actually a couple of micro-cameras, small enough that he could hold them with only his thumb and pointer finger. From what BadBoy told him, he was able to use these cameras as a sort of bridge between him and any device connected to the ctOS, being able to hack things through them as if he was there in person.

While most of them were wireless ones that he could place on a location that he couldn't normally see or was hard to reach, one of them had a wire, and would actually be hooked on his mask to help BadBoy see what he would be seeing.

The wire connected with his throat mic's radio to use its battery.

They had surprisingly good image quality for their small size, and a rather long battery life for the wireless ones.

All in all, everything seemed all very futuristic for him, especially since he wasn't well versed in technology. Gwen could probably tell him what's what between these better than anyone he knew; she had a knack for these kinds of things.

After spending a few minutes testing things out, he put everything inside the box neatly and hid it all where he put his costume, momentarily stopping to look at his mask.

There were some cracks running throughout its once pristine body – a little "Gift" from his last fight after that glove sent him flying – with one big crack running from the back of the skull all the way to its right eye and cheek. Its white color was now almost completely smeared and stained with a red hue from all the blood that continuously painted it.

Adam tried to clean it before, but the red just wouldn't go away so he decided to just leave it like it was.

He was meaning to buy another one anyway, it was just that he really didn't have the time lately.

Either way, after hiding everything again, Adam actually did spend some time working out. He wasn't lying when he said he wanted to make up for lost time.

It was sometime later that he returned to the girls, and Adam made true to his promise of treating them to some pizza as they spent the rest of the night together

He missed this, he really missed this. Just the three of them, talking and hanging out. It was a pleasant feeling that reminded him of old times, not necessarily better times, but good all the same.

That's what I fight for, who I fight for.

- BB-

Tonight, was the night.

Cass had gone out with her friend May for a girl's night, and he knew that she would only come home really late. Kate, meanwhile, had once again been called by her mother for a talk and would only return some time tomorrow.

It was, of course, his duty as her best friend to tease her by saying that maybe Eleanor called her to tell that she really did make that Jack guy her boyfriend.

She didn't think it was nearly as funny as he did.

To make things better, today was Saturday, so no school tomorrow.

This was the perfect opportunity, and he knew that something like this wouldn't present itself to him for a long time.

BadBoy and him had prepared as much as they could, so, he packed his gear and weapons and set out to the warehouse.

Hell's Kitchen was different from what he imagined, especially from what he was used to seeing. The six story tall buildings and the characteristic old historic architecture was extremely different from the far more modern concrete jungle that was the wider New York, or even the suburban/commercial style that was Queens.

It… could've been beautiful, but honestly? It looked like a slum; trash everywhere, graffiti all around the place, factory chimneys constantly churning out a sickening smog that clung to everything and painted the place in a blackish-brown hue. Not to mention the fact that he had to stop no less than four muggings before even arriving at the docks.

There weren't even any Christmas decorations around the place for the coming holidays.

If one were to look at it from a map, they'd have twenty blocks on the West Side that look like they were stuck in the 80's. Whatever reforms Giuliani tried to do didn't really work all that well in this place.

If he'd have to bet, the Maggia would probably be the biggest reason for it.

Near the docks themselves, where he was, it was a little better due to the constant traffic of cargo and overall commerce, but not by much else.

However, despite the old-school style of the buildings and the lawless atmosphere of the place, or perhaps even because of it, he could clearly identify the contrastingly modern equipment of the ctOS all around; cameras, antennas, a faraway ctOS tower that was visible even from where he was, and the odd drones flying overhead, probably part of the crime prediction system.

Those he took more care not to be seen or identified by, he couldn't afford to make a scene today of all days.

Despite not being all that late into the night, there were very few people mingling through the streets at this time, and the ones that were there seemed skittish and eager to go as far away from the place as fast as possible.

He was certainly far from home.

Adam shook his head out of unrelated thoughts, now was not the time to be distracted. He took a deep breath, pulling his hood up as he put on his game face.

Exhaling deeply, his breath came out in a long, cold mist that exited through the sides of his mask as he observed his target.

He sat stealthily from a vantage position on the roof of a factory located just across the street from the cargo dock that he and BadBoy had been studying.

He had seen the pictures, he had seen it through google maps, but seeing it in person was completely different.

As with everything in Hell's Kitchen, the architecture looked old school and was of a brownish-black color, along the walls "Stuart Shipment" was painted in bold white colors. There were two large main gates for trucks to pass through, both locked, one was an entrance and the other an exit.

It was completely walled off, and inside the docks themselves he could see many containers piled on top of each other and arranged neatly in columns besides each other. There was a giant cargo crane currently turned off near the side of the river, various forklifts, trucks and other equipment were also scattered throughout the lot.

He wondered if those containers were also filled with drugs or not.

All in all, the dock was relatively large, but smaller than what he imagined a cargo dock to be from what he saw on the internet.

Though he could imagine why, this cargo dock was located in the Hudson river and it was probably older than even his late grandfather. It made sense for it to not be on the same scale as the ones from New Jersey, Manhattan or Brooklyn.

His actual target was the warehouse itself, which was located quite a ways from the main docks, and far from the container's space. All the important documents, shipment manifests, future arrivals and other such things he and BadBoy were looking for were there in the manager's office on the third floor.

To his suspicion, there were still people milling about on the docks despite the late hours; a few security guards and dock workers, most of them were around the exit gate or the warehouse while the entrance gate was seemingly empty of people.

Adam didn't know if they were actual dock workers on a night shift or the Maggia's men, but he took note of them all the same.

What surprised him the most was the fact that the place was completely filled to the teeth with ctOS security. Cameras, antennas, facial recognition, and even a few drones flying around…

It wasn't unusual for private businesses to have a higher level of ctOS security than normal, Kate and Eleanor told him as much, but he'd never seen anything of this level for a simple business like this.

This place looked more like a fortress than a cargo dock, and if that wasn't suspicious, he didn't know what it was.

If he wasn't nervous before he certainly was now, "Remember the plan?"

At least he wasn't working alone.

BadBoy's computer altered voice brought Adam out of his thoughts and he nodded, trying to relieve some of his tension and nerves as he joked, "Course I do, go in sneaky sneaky and steal some shit."

BadBoy snorted in amusement, it sounded a little weird with the altered tone of his voice, "Yes, that's about it. But be careful, this is just a simple recon mission, nothing more. Try not to get caught, there's more security here than normal."

He nodded in acknowledgement, "That just means we're going the right way."

Adam wasn't one for stealth, he just wasn't built for it, but if he went in guns blazing like he normally preferred to do, things definitely wouldn't end well. He didn't know how many men were there or how well-armed they were, and while he could probably tank a shot or two, more than that was tempting fate and he did enough of that as it was.

Besides, if he raised some sort of alarm, there was a high chance that the information on those computers would be erased in some way, not to mention bring all the attention of potentially armed men to him.

It was a good thing he had a plan in case things went to shit.

Run the fuck away.

"If everything goes right, it'll all be nice and quiet. In and out, twenty minutes tops."

Taking one last look at the place, Adam mentally prepared himself one last time before getting up from his kneeling position, "Alright, enough procrastinating. I'm going in,"

With a slight heave he vaulted from the edge of the elevated roof he was at, falling down onto the lower-leveled roof below with barely a sound. Not even fazed, he then gave a running start before jumping down to the ground several feet below, falling into a roll to dissipate the pressure from his joints with a grunt.

While a fall from that height would've normally broken or severely sprained something in him before, he was feeling better and fitter than he ever had after he healed, and the fall barely even bothered him.

Looking both ways to see if there were cars coming, he stealthily crossed the street with a run, stopping only when he reached closer to the wall surrounding the docks. "I'll have to climb it to get in, tell me if there's someone on the other side"

As he prepared for a running jump, BadBoy's words stopped him, "No need," there was amusement in his modulated voice.

Moments later, the entrance gate started to open by itself.

"Oh, that's… convenient" he said in surprise before asking "I thought their system was closed off or something? Isn't that the whole reason I'm here?"

"No, just their server and database are off grid, their security system is connected to the ctOS." BadBoy explained, "Cheap for them, good for us."

He nodded in understanding, "What about the cameras, won't they see me through there?"

"Don't worry about them, I'll take care of that." He reassured before continuing,"But be careful with the drones, it takes a while for me to hack them so they can still alert people if they see you."

Taking BadBoy's words cautiously to heart, he looked left and right to see if there were people coming before mentally shrugging and slipping past the open gate.

The gate closed behind him with surprisingly little sound as he carefully observed his surroundings. He was in what looked like a wide corridor for the trucks to go through, with a ramp that led down to yet another gate. This was the only way in, probably some sort of checkup or triage for the trucks before entering the docks.

What caught his attention however was the fact that down the ramp, near the gate, was a security cabin with a guard inside, absently drinking coffee as he messed around on his phone. He was far enough away and too distracted to have heard or seen the gate opening and him entering.

With a whispered curse, Adam quickly hid behind a security van that was parked a little further away, "Shit, there's a guy up front, I can't slip past him without him seeing me."

"I got it.", BadBoy told him. "Point a camera behind the gate, at one of the surveillance cameras."

Adam carefully leaned from the corners of the truck to get a better vision, pointing his helmet's camera towards a ctOS camera, "I see it. Be ready to run past the gate on my mark."

He saw the camera in question begin to move slowly, turning to point at something behind the gate that he couldn't see. Suddenly, a loud crackle of electricity rang out behind the wall, and the gate abruptly began to open and close in malfunction.

The guard sputtered on his coffee, spilling the hot drink over himself in surprise, "What th- Ow, fuck!"

For the man's credit he reacted quickly enough, getting out of his cabin to investigate when suddenly a loud explosion rang out behind the wall, opening the gate fully.

Damn, that was cool. Did he make the power junction explode through a camera?

"Now."

Immediately dismissing his thoughts, Adam quickly ran through the shadows, slipping past unseen by the distracted guard that was investigating the malfunctioning power junction.

Hiding behind one of the parked trucks, he carefully assessed his surroundings.

He could already see the warehouse. The square, three stories tall building was far larger than it seemed in the pictures, it was old and brown, though slightly better taken care of than others he had seen in Hell's Kitchen. It had three visible entrances, one on the ground level, one on the second level accessible through a flight of stairs and one on the roof.

Adam was still too far from it, and there was just too much surveillance along the way. There were a few dock workers in the front near the door and the stairs to the second level entrance, as well as some drones patrolling around the place.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't just go in willy nilly through the front door, the safest way he could get inside the warehouse unseen was by the third floor through the roof, where he and BadBoy knew there was almost no one around.

On the back of the warehouse, where there were far less cameras and surveillance, there were pipes that surged from the ground and led all the way up to the third floor.

He would climb that and slip past the door, but for that he had to get there in the first place.

As Adam leaned over the truck to continue observing things, he quickly updated his ally on his situation, "I can see the warehouse, but I'm still too far and there's too many people around it." Turning to look closer around him, he continued, "There's also a few guards patrolling and a few drones flying around me. There's too many eyes for me to just slip by."

As he reported his situation, Adam could see the cameras above and around him start to move around all throughout the docks, and he knew that BadBoy had managed to access them and was sweeping the place up, "I see it, give me a minute to create a distraction for you. Move at my mark."

All of a sudden, a forklift a few feet away from him activated by itself, its forks seemingly malfunctioning as it repeatedly activated and deactivated. The guards nearest to him were startled out of their route as they turned around to see the commotion, "The hell?"

"Not yet, they're still too close."

The men made their way to the forklift, moving away from him but still too close for him to move safely, "Damn Chinese piece of crap always breaking, nothing ever works here."

When they were far enough away, BadBoy alerted him, "Now."

Adam quickly slipped past them and made his way forward as stealthily as he could, careful to stay in the shadows of the buildings around him and avoid lights.

From there on out, BadBoy helped him carefully navigate around the minefield that was the docks so he could get to the location quickly.

Since this whole warehouse used ctOS for practically everything, BadBoy managed to create several distractions, by tripping car alarms to draw people away from him, activating forklifts and other equipment, short circuiting a few power junctions, or hacking phones to distract guards or dock workers…

And he did all of that through the cameras while being god knows how many miles away, probably from the comfort of his house without having to lift more than a finger.

He's one scary motherfucker. I'm glad he's on my side.

There was even one moment he even exploded a pressure valve to distract a few dock workers.

It never ceased to amaze and confuse him how everything was connected by the ctOS nowadays. He could understand the need for progress, but why make a pressure valve or even a damn forklift of all things be able to be controlled by ctOS?

Thankfully he eventually made his way to the back of the warehouse, there were a few close calls here and there, but with some quick thinking and BadBoy's help he was able to reach around the warehouse unseen.

The back of the warehouse looked like an alley, with its walls blocking any possible view that the guards or dock workers could have of him.

Adam could already see the pipeline in question a few feet away from him, but he paused for a moment, leaning on the walls with his hand so he could catch his breath and calm his mind and body now that he had some breathing room. To be honest it was more out of tension than tiredness.

Invading a fully secured enemy base was far harder than it looked, who'd have known?

He was slightly out of breath as he spoke, "I can see the pipes in front of me, just… give me a moment to catch my breath."

BadBoy's altered deep tone was clearly amused as he spoke, "Tired already? I barely broke a sweat."

Adam let out a loud snort, "Yeah, yeah," waving his hands away, "Next time you'll be the one on the field and I'll be the one sitting behind the computer in an air-conditioned room, we'll see how well it'll go yeah?"

BadBoy chuckled at his answer, "No need to get testy."

After sufficiently catching his breath, Adam lifted himself out of the wall he was leaning on and quickly made his way forward where the pipes were, and the closer he got, the further up he had to look.

Up, and up, and up all the way until its topmost part reached the edge of the third floor's balcony.

Fucking hell, that shit's tall.

Without losing any more time, he quickly looked around him to make sure there weren't any people around as he began climbing, "You know… This would be way easier… if I had a grappling hook." His speech was interrupted by the constant huffs he had to take as he climbed up.

BadBoy only let out a snort.

He reached the rooftop's balcony sometime later, having to make a jump from the pipe to the balcony, falling into it with a roll before observing his surroundings carefully.

The balcony was relatively wide, with a too-small black fence surrounding it and the square building that shared the rooftop. The rusted metallic green door was the entrance he sought, the safest way to go inside since they knew that people rarely used the third floor as the main operation of the warehouse was located on the first and second floors.

He noted that there were no cameras on the roof itself.

"I'm here," Adam said, even though he knew the image was being transmitted to BadBoy through his mask's camera.

"Good," BadBoy answered, "But don't enter yet, I still don't have eyes inside the warehouse. See if you can find anything inside."

Nodding, Adam made his way to the closest window he could see, peering through the glass in search of a ctOS camera.

He found two of them, one pointing towards the door while the other sat in the far corner, pointing down towards the stairs. From this angle he could just use his helmet's camera, so he simply pointed it towards the one at the stairs, "Found it,"

"I see it," BadBoy said, "Give me a while to see what I can find,"

Adam obliged, knowing that BadBoy was probably bouncing off to the other cameras inside from there. Meanwhile, he carefully scouted around the roof to see if there were any drones passing around or anything else that could be used to find him.

A few moments later, BadBoy finally spoke up, "The third floor is clear, but I see at least twenty people on the other floors, maybe more." His altered tone was grave as he continued, "Some are armed, a few rifles and handguns, some have vests as well."

Damn.

He could already see the disaster it would be if he were to be found out, but he still held hope as he asked, "They could just be security guards?"

"Not unless they're guarding the massive boxes full of weapons, no." BadBoy's answer had a hint of sarcasm, and he continued "They don't really look like security guards."

If there was any doubt of this place being a Maggia stronghold in his mind, there weren't any more of these thoughts now. Adam may not know much about these sorts of things, but he didn't think that a simple dock warehouse would have any sort of security and firepower of this scale.

"You should move quickly, there's a drone coming your way. I already unlocked the door."

Cursing under his breath, Adam quickly went to the door, cringing when the old piece let out a metallic wail as he opened it slowly. Trying to avoid any more noise, he quickly slipped inside when the opening became just wide enough for his wide bulk to enter sideways, closing the door behind him with another metallic wail.

When he finally entered the warehouse, he quickly looked around, and when he saw there was no one around, all the tension that built up inside him from all the sneaking around and fear of being caught left his body with a deep sigh now that he could relax, at least momentarily, "You know, games make this seem so much easier."

BadBoy snorted, "Cheer up, you're almost at the end."

"Right," he said with slight humor in his voice, "And how long did it take for me to get here?"

There was a second's pause before BadBoy answered, "Sixteen minutes." he answered, his voice then grew smug as he added, "Like I said, in and out, twenty minutes."

"Don't jinx this, man." Putting his thoughts away, he turned his sight to cautiously look around the insides of the warehouse. He could rest later.

Just as the outside of the warehouse looked bigger than the picture, the insides were even more so. The third floor where he was smaller than the other floors below, with a large balcony overlooking the lower levels, rows upon rows of shelves completely filled with boxes of various sizes were stacked neatly throughout the floors.

He could see the manager's office on the other end of the third floor. That was his main goal.

Reaching towards the balcony, he peered down to observe the other floors.

The first thing he noticed were the huge boxes filled to the brim with guns and ammo placed throughout the two levels, obviously having been carried by the overhead crane connected to the ceiling.

The rest looked like any normal warehouse. The entrances for the trucks, random equipment and machines he didn't know the name of, more shelves stacked with boxes, and other such things. Besides the guns, there was nothing else special he could see.

Except of course the armed men guarding the place. Just as BadBoy said, a few of them were armed to the teeth, with rifles and vests strapped with them, while others only carried handguns but still had vests on. The rest of the men inside were just a few dock workers.

He couldn't count the exact number of people here, but it was a lot. He committed their faces to mind, just in case.

Giving the weapons scattered around the warehouse a closer look, Adam couldn't help the trepidation in his whispered voice, "Those are some serious heavy-duty equipment, they look like they're going up to war or something." Giving the boxes more a more scrutinizing look, he continued, "But I don't see any drugs here though,"

"Maybe it's in another one of their warehouses, or in one of their hideouts. Leave the more damning evidence in more secure places?"

Adam gave things one last look before moving on, "Maybe…"

Leaving a few of his micro cameras around in key locations to keep track of people below and what was happening, he quickly made his way to the manager's office a few feet away from him.

Once BadBoy gave him the all clear that there was no one inside, Adam quickly opened the door and slipped into the room.

The first thing that hit him as he entered was the musty smell, followed quickly by the dust and cobwebs that lined the file cabinets and other furniture, the carpeted floor and the walls. Looking up, he saw that the ceiling was nonexistent as wires and pipes ran over it all.

Like the rest of the building, the room was old.

One would think that the place was uninhabited, if not for the computer sitting on one of the desks, and the many, many, brand-new-looking servers that lined the walls. Blue lights blinking intermittently off of them.

Adam let out an impressed low whistle, sound coming out muffed out of his stained mask.

"Connect the thumb drive to the computer, I'll take it from there."BadBoy's words quickly brought Adam out of his inspection.

Making notes of the windows and the possible escape routes he could make if worse came to worse and BadBoy betrayed him, Adam quickly took the thumb drive out of his pockets and plugged it in one of the computer's USB ports after turning it on.

Just like his own computer, the same digital skull appeared on the black screen, files upon files beginning to appear on the screens that surrounded it.

Knowing that the process would take some time, Adam decided to ease his nerves by talking with BadBoy, "You know, not to doubt you or anything, but why exactly couldn't you just… use your computer magic to do this like you did to my computer?"

BadBoy chuckled before he answered, amusement in his altered tone, "I would if I could, but invading the system of a multi-million crime syndicate is surprisingly harder than hacking a teenage boy." The sarcasm was clear in his voice, he continued, "But no, this system is… different from what I usually see, it's not the standard ctOS security that all other companies use, it's a completely closed off system, they don't even use the internet. It's really complex and secure, whoever did this is undoubtedly brilliant."

Adam absently nodded, "Uhuh, right, I got it."

He didn't.

BadBoy let out an amused huff before continuing, "In theory, it should be possible, but without this physical access to their systems, it would be virtually impossible to get in. Thankfully, you're here to make my job easier."

He only nodded in acknowledgement, "That's what I do best."

Adam spent the next few minutes roaming around the room, going through the file cabinets in search of any documents or any information that might seem important while BadBoy worked.

It was only sometime later that BadBoy finally spoke, snapping him out of his own investigation with a loud exclamation, "Merde!"

Adam may not know what the word meant, but he definitely recognized the tone. Quickly stowing away the papers he was looking over in his jacket, he sat himself in the old chair in front of the computer, hurriedly asking, "What, Is something wrong? Did they find us?"

His question was met with a reluctant silence, as if BadBoy was thinking on what to say, until, "You… have to see this,"

The Maggia was a gang that had absolutely no morals. Drugs, racketeering, weapons trafficking, blackmail, and prostitution were only a few of the things they did. They didn't just dip their toes in these waters, oh no, they fucking dived in head-first and swam laps in them.

Adam already knew that even before now.

But it was what he saw in one folder in particular, one buried so deep and hidden so well in the files that BadBoy hacked, that made him go stock still.

During his sixteen years of life, Adam understood and accepted the fact that New York was filled with the worst that the world had to offer, he dealt with them every night after all.

He thought he had seen society's black underbelly, he thought he understood it, that he was ready to deal with the worst that people could offer him.

But there were some acts that not even the vermin on the streets even dared to commit or allowed to happen on their turf.

An act so vile that Adam couldn't even believe that it was capable of happening in a manner so open and organized like what he was seeing here.

This warehouse was a hub of child porn.

And it was here, he recognized the place, he recognized the people, he even recognized their fucking faces.

After all, they were working right down below him.

Worse yet, the Maggia thugs weren't even the only ones here that participated in the act. There were many other people he could see, the dock workers, some men in fancy-looking clothes, even men in police uniforms.

He could feel the familiar feeling riding within, the liquid fire of anger running through him, clouding his mind and strengthening his body, but what was different this time was that this wasn't met with the usual fear and anxiety that normally accompanied it.

No, this time he welcomed it with open arms, like an old friend he hadn't seen in years.

Adam only felt the burning, vivid red slipping his mind away, and his world was changed.

Every last one of them would pay for this. In pain, blood and tears.

Every. Last. One.

He could hear a faint voice amidst his delirium, a faraway thing that kept calling him, "...am? Adam, are you ok?"

Recognizing BadBoy's altered voice, Adam blinked his daze out of his eyes, "This… this…"

Greeting up from his chair, he turned his gaze to the window beside him, looking down on the people below going about their work as if nothing happened, "They're here."

"What are you talking about?"

He had no other choice; he couldn't just let these… these vermin walk away after what they did.

He knew what he had to do.

He slowly walked towards the other desk inside the room. It was an old thing, brown, big and made out of solid wood, probably bought when this warehouse was first built that many years ago. It was solid, sturdy.

Heavy.

It was only when Adam slowly began to lift the solid wood desk in front of him that BadBoy realized what he was about to do.

Letting out a light gasp, BadBoy's voice was filled with urgency as he hurriedly interjected, "Adam, wait, I understand your anger, truly I do, but we have to stick with the plan! If they find out that we know about th-"

Adam didn't have the state of mind to give any answer other than a growled, "I'm changing the plan."

He slowly lifted the heavy furniture above his head, muscles bulging from the weight as he walked towards the windows even though it just felt like a paper weight to him.

"Adam just stop to think! There's too many people down there, it's too dangerous to-"

With a loud grunt, Adam threw the heavy desk, sending it flying through the windows with a loud crash.

---

No action this chapter, but there'll be plenty next one.

AN:

Oof, kind of a heavy chapter innit?

Didn't quite like how it ended, I wanted to make it more violent and/or momentous, but as much as I wanted to, Adam is still a bit too far from being able to jump from the third floor unscathed.

Not who you thought the voice would be right? Believe it or not, Clara Lille was the second character that I added to the story after Kate. She was always in the plan, even when this story was still a Spider-Man one.

The beginning of this chapter was a fucking bitch to write. To be honest, I still hate it. I wrote and rewrote it at least 7 times, that's almost 30-40k words discarded, even now it's not how I wanted it. I don't think that the pacing is good and I feel the characters are OOC. It's frustrating.

But if I kept holding this chapter back even more than I already did then I would never release it.

One of the reasons why this chapter took so long was because I wanted the characters to be absolutely, perfectly characterized. My absolute BIGGEST peeve in all fanfictions is characterization, if a character doesn't' seem like themselves it's an instant no to me, and I don't want that for my own story.

After all, it was Kate's depiction on Hawkeye that made me start this in the first place.

I want Kate to seem like Kate, I want Clara to seem like Clara, I want Cass to seem like Cass, this made me write and rewrite so many times that I lost count. The last thing I want with her and the other girls is to make them seem like they're just there as an accessory you know? For them to not matter and add absolutely nothing to the story beyond just being there or something like that.

To be honest, I think characterization has been my biggest nightmare until now. How are the characters? How are the dialogues? Please tell me what you guys think,

On to happier times, what did you think of Bishop Security basically acting like a mini ctOS from Watch Dogs? I can't believe I only thought of this in chapter 3, if I thought of this earlier, I would've put hints in the previous chapters.

There wasn't much information on what exactly Bishop Security did and how they operated on the wiki, so I decided to just go on with it and use it to link the Watch Dogs crossover. I have good plans for them.

Also, I know that Christine Palmer is a doctor in the MCU, but I wanted to mention her as an easter egg, and doctors don't draw blood for blood tests (unless it's different there in the US), so I guess she is now a nurse.

Btw, I'll say this now before anyone asks, there will be NO clones, or power stealing, or super soldier serum created by his blood or stuff like that because they took his blood, rest assured.

Random fact: Apparently there are earthquakes on the moon. According to NASA, the moon is shrinking due to the cooling of its interior, which may be causing the moonquakes.

If, for some reason, you want to support me, here's my Ko - Fi . com / thebedguy.

There's nothing there, no advanced chapters or anything, this is just here as an option so don't feel obliged to do anything please.